Note for non-Australian visitors

In Australia "Liberal" is Right-Wing Neo-Cons; economically liberal, socially repressive, tax the poor to subsidise the rich. Republican is also a good thing, as opposed to being a lackey of the British monarchy.

1 Tony Abbott needs to take the chance and go all in

Tony Abbott must see his opportunity of being PM rests in this election, if the Federal Coalition lose, the chance is he will be replace, possibly by Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull or a fresh face, such as Alex Hawke. Abbott needs to take the risk, it’s now or never. Abbott needs to see off, not just PM Rudd, but any possible challengers from his side. If Kevin Rudd’s return to the top job sees ALP resurgent in the polls, Abbott might feel he won’t get to the Lodge this Christmas, and has to take risk.

Abbott has embarked on a five-year campaign to get into the Lodge “by Christmas”. Abbott spent the past three years waging war against the hung parliament – the AWU non scandal, Peter Slipper nearly hounded from Parliament by the man who was guest of honour at Slipper’s wedding, Craig Thomson was targetted (a move which Bronwyn Bishop admitted was only because of the hung parliament), the two NSW Independents and their families were put through a barrage of hate from the Right wing, media, voters and politicians, the Ashby failed coup d’état. The daily sexism and misogyny against the sitting prime minister, Julia Gillard. It’s was a nasty, vicious, unhealthy, level of hate and attack that must be hard to sustain for anyone who isn’t a soulless sociopath.

Not only is Abbott putting his challengers and the Government under pressure, he is also under pressure, too much more and Australia might witness the Great Unhinging.

2 If the debate is a disaster, there is still time to recover

If Tony Abbott fails dismally, his team have time to spin it before the election. Move on, claim there was only ever going to be one debate.

If the debate is close, however, Abbott might take a lesson from Barack Obama’s book, and use a bad first debate to his advantage.
During the 2012 election, Obama and his republican opponent, Mitt Romney, had three debates. Obama was flat the first time out. Romney was belligerent, overstepped time limits, talked over the moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS (all things that would appeal to Republican voters). The second debate could be seen as even. The third debate, Obama wiped the floor with Romney, he got in his jokes, knew his facts and figures, was at ease with the “town hall” audience, even the moderator, Candy Crowley was fact-checking Romney, during the debate.

Obama’s bad start to the debates actually worked to his advantage, by improving, he gained the momentum, where as his opponent was seen as losing momentum, and people love a winner who can come from behind. Some people questioned whether Obama tanked the first debate to be seen as the improving candidate and Romney failing.

A close debate gives Abbott room to improve. Maybe he doesn’t have the skills to think on his feet that Rudd does, or the ability to retain facts and figures in his head, or anything much more than three-word slogans, with the media on your side, even a close debate can read “Abbott winner” on the front page of the Australian the following day.

3 No matter how bad the debate is for Abbott, the MS Media will cover for Abbott

Voters might want a debate, but most people demanding debates probably wouldn’t watch them. Abbott can agree to a debate in the middle of the day, on a weekday, and with the media, particularly News Limited2, on Abbott’s side, the only thing that will make the 6PM news bulletins and next day papers will be the highlights for Abbott and lowlights for PM Rudd. This means another opportunity to get Liberal party slogans on air and focusing on the smallest Rudd mis-step.

A close debate, the media will spin it for Abbott, a bad debate and the media will tear apart PM Rudd. Abbott can’t lose.

It has never been a factor for voters how mendacious, obfuscating, ignorant, or sloganeering Abbott is, or the deliberate his misinterpretation of important policies (all positives in the eyes of conservative voters), the people still love Tony Abbott. A debate won’t change that, and his has yet another platform to appear Presidential, or Prime Ministerial if he mentions other strong performers in his Shadowy Cabinet.

4 Abbott needs to go head to head with Rudd to differentiate himself from PM Rudd

Abbott’s biggest weapon in the past three years has been the gender card (a gender card is not like a credit card, women don’t get to pull it out when they want something, it’s more like a red card or yellow card in football, something used against you). Without gender being a factor, Abbott needs a new strategy to distinguish himself from the other blue-tie wearing, white, christian, married with children, male.

Kevin Rudd is seen by some as too friendly with the Opposition, and some see PM Rudd as converging his policies with the Right, Abbott needs to do something to show he is different, otherwise, come election day, voters may think, why change government, we have already gone through one change, we don’t need another so soon.

5 Abbott needs to go soon, before PM Rudd really warm up to being back

PM Gillard was fighting on three fronts – the Opposition, the media, and Kevin Rudd. Without a Rudd destabilising the sitting PM, and a media attempting to bring down a Prime Minister and/or government3, Abbott won’t find it so easy as he has previously, Abbott needs to go to a debate soon, before Rudd settles in and warms up.

This will provide Abbott the opportunity for a second debate, after the honeymoon is over and Rudd starts to cool down, after voters remember all the reasons they cool down on Rudd the first time. A second debate with a cooling PM will give Abbott the momentum, bring it home strong as they election nears.

And 6 The people want it

Abbott will be seen as a coward if he doesn’t, although the ALP may be too polite to use any failure to debate against him in an election campaign.

Sources1 During Electoral Matters (Inquiry into the AEC Analysis of the FWA report on the HSU) Fri, 06 Jul 2012, Bishop said the Liberals were going after Craig Thomson because of the hung parliament “we didn’t have a Thomson before and we didn’t have a government relying on his vote”

3 Justice Rares in Ashby v Commonwealth of Australia found:
“Mr Ashby’s references to “empowering others”, and “national decisions”, were concerned solely with the political consequences of what Mr Ashby was contemplating. Those consequences could affect the balance of power in the House of Representatives, depending on whether Mr Slipper could remain as Speaker if Mr Ashby used his “power” and what effect that use would have. That was because the Government did not have a majority in the House and was reliant on cross bench support, assisted by Mr Slipper”
Source: here: www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au

Hurt, angry about ex-PM Gillard? Feel betrayed by PM Rudd? How does “President Abbott” sound? Both Rudd and Abbott are moving us to a US-American style of political campaigning and it was an obsession with presidential-style popularity polls which justified the knifing of our first female Prime Minister, and not the policies or legislation the Gillard Government passed. It’s happened, can’t change it, so where to now?

First is the Grieving or Celebrating

I’ll never vote ALP again. I feel betrayed. I am furious. I’m grieving.
These are just some of the comments I’ve seen and heard since PM Gillard was knifed.

Move on. We have to unite. Rudd is our best hope, our only hope.
I’ve seen people spend more time talking about how their football team lost and have been allowed to vent and rage for longer following a mid-season defeat than what Left wing supporters have been allowed to talk about what happened without someone telling them to “move on, unite behind Rudd”.

You’re hurt, you think Kevin Rudd is a traitor? What can we do? analyse it, cancel our political party memberships if we are in the ALP, start recruiting if we are in the Greens, maybe tear down, undermine, white-ant Rudd, send the ALP to the wilderness, perhaps. Or we could fight Tony Abbott and his conservatives regardless of who is the Prime Minister.

On the other hand, maybe you’re celebrating, and the people who are grieving see that as gloating, or rewarding a white-anter who betrayed his party. Now is not the time for “I told you so”, save that for after the election.

Is it true that Bill Shorten encouraged PM Gillard to spill then afterwards withdrew support? Is it true that the two Labor MP packing up their office, as breathlessly reported by Latika Bourke, was part of a Team Rudd stunt to undermine PM Gillard? Is it true the plot was hatched, days or even weeks before the Wednesday spill?, as Stephen Smith said the day after the spill “I am great mates with Albo. I said to him the other day, ‘Albo, if you become Deputy Prime Minister, I’ll be able to call you both leader and deputy at the same time”1 (surely he meant to say, last night, not the other day).

In the end, does it matter? While PM Gillard supporters were taking selfies of their cleavage, the men and women of the Labor party were plotting the downfall of the Prime Minister. The analysis of the hows and the whys, what we think and how we feel won’t change what happened.

Politicians will always play politics, it’s what they do, it’s how they got where they are. Getting angry at politicians for acting like politicians seems a waste of energy.

Believing what a politician says is like playing poker with a backbencher. When you finally get a royal flush, he jabs you with a sharp stick.

Abbott tries to Americanise (Americanize) our politics

Tony Abbott promised back in october “The next election campaign will be the filthiest and the most personal in living memory.”2

He has made it a contest between leaders, based on popularity, he has had numerous campaign rallies, called for the direct election of the Prime Minister, dragged his wife and smiley children into the picture, as if he was Mitt Romney, he has fought on Tea Party style issues, and put religion of candidates centre stage.

This past weekend we witnessed a most US-American style election campaign rally from the Liberal party (pictured). Complete with bored people in the background who tick all the demographic boxes, Hillsong style theme songs and speeches that wouldn’t be out of place in any Hauptstraße.

Abbott’s repeated claims about the people choose the Prime Minister3 – not in this country we don’t, it’s a little thing known as the Westminster System, maybe he is confused about the differences between a president and a prime minister. Perhaps someone can tell Tony Abbott what it is or read the Wikipedia page to him. (link Wikipedia: Westminster System)

This is deliberate misinformation, people don’t choose, the people never choose, and for Abbott to campaign for three years that the voters should be angry because Prime Minister Gillard wasn’t chosen by the people conveniently skips the 2010 election, where Ms Gillard was the prime minister. Notice how many times the media talks about a Rudd-government or Gillard-government, instead of ALP-government.

This is part of the dumbing down of our political understanding. It is easier to talk about personalities and popularity of leaders, because to say you “don’t like” someone takes a lot less brain cells than understanding and evaluating their policies. It is easier to reduce politics to 3-word slogans and tell people they are supposed to feel fear of refugees, betrayed because they were ‘lied’ to and scared of a great big new tax, than talk about legislation and policy detail.

Fixed election dates, so we can spend three years campaigning, rather than governing for two and half then campaigning in the last few weeks. Makes it a bit difficult to be screaming hysterically for “Election Now!” at the same time stamping your feet and demanding fixed terms, hey, Mr Abbott?

What’s Next?

If we have learned anything from The West Wing, besides Martin Sheen was a better fictional president than real life George W ever was, it is: no matter how bad or how good things get in politics, you move on, you deal with what you have to, then say ‘what’s next?’

Pres Jed Bartlett (The West Wing) “When I ask ‘What’s Next?’ it means I’m ready to move on to other things. So, what’s next?”

We can’t turn back the clock – though Abbott would like to, and maybe some of the grief people are feeling is not just because it happened, but because in the end, it did a make a difference, in the polls. So, until we invent a DeLorean time machine, what’s next?

If Abbott wants nasty personal US-style campaigning, maybe the Left should also look to the US and see what we like and borrow from them. As Leon C. Megginson says:

“According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species… that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”

You wanted it Abbott, you wanted it Rudd, maybe its time for those of us whose politics goes beyond parroting Alan Jones and doing the Sausage Sizzle Shuffle once ever three years to get our names marked off to take political campaigning to a different level.

If the Liberal Nationals switch to US style presidential election campaigning, they will have the upper hand – they have the media on their side, they have the financial backers, they have the lobbyists, and they have a energise base.

Fight On Issues
With Kevin Rudd and his “normal” family, as one commentator said, back in Boganville (his private nickname for the Lodge), I have seen and heard a lot of despair, particularly from women whose interest in federal politics was piqued by Julia Gillard. I say, Don’t give up.

If the party you love thinks the way it can win is by converging its policies with the Right, and you think you can no longer campaign for them, raise funds, donate time, make calls for them, do you abandon them, or do you let them know you are not happy with them trying to be Liberal-lite.

If you feel you can longer support the party, chose a cause you believe in, whether women’s rights, worker’s rights, human rights, environmental rights, and find a candidate that supports those, and fight for those individual candidates. Lobby groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby, (which could be just a handful of gay hating men in their mothers spare bedroom), have enormous sway over the political landscape, because they fight on single issues, and the never stop fighting. Groups such as Emilys List, or Get Up, bypass the party machine, and a look at their websites will let you know the candidates they support rather than an entire party, or the causes they are mobilising for.

If the party moves to the right in a chase for votes and sells our its core principles, make every issue a battle ground, the most engaged wins, the Left can do that. The Left are very good at fighting on behalf of others and the disadvantage, the Right are good at fighting for their own self-interest.

There are lobby groups, community organisations, online and real world networks, grassroots campaigns, not just one, but as many as your time, energy, finances, and interest can sustain. Volunteer or be a financial member, donate your time if you are skilled, form your own lobby groups to fight for a small local issue and learn activism and lobbying skills from the ground up. A change of prime minister shouldn’t mean a mass exodus of engaged and informed voters.

Citizen Journalism
Journalist Margo Kingston of No Fibs, and others like her, are reinvigorating political reporting with citizen journalism. The mainstream media has made itself redundant with endlessly repetitive opinion pieces and vested interests, the 5th estate bloggers and website owners is filling the gap.

Whatever your cause or candidate, the mainstream media probably won’t be reporting favourably unless it is in their financial interests to do so. If you can’t maintain your own blog, join with a bunch of friends, and report from your electorate, or on your cause, or promote your candidate.

I have seen a lot of engagement with politics, particularly federal, over the past few years, it would a shame if a change in leader ended that. If we want something, its time to show our elected leaders we are engaged, not just hope our politicians do the right thing, and complain afterwards, remind them that while voting is compulsory, voting for them is optional, and we are not going to go away.

If you live in a safe electorate, and feel you can’t make a difference, fight to make it marginal. Your vote won’t be taken for granted. Live in a very safe seat, choose a seat where you feel you can difference, and fight for those issues or that candidate.

Fundraising

Fundraising, which is where the Liberals have it over the Left. They have the almost unlimited resources of the major miners and big business. That have people lining up to attend intimate dinners for 20 at $1000 a plate.

Can’t afford $1000, and don’t want to reward Kevin Rudd and don’t want to join the Greens, but still don’t want Abbott to be PM. Support causes, candidates and lobby groups, instead of (or as well as) parties.

Host your own fund-raiser, get your friends together, have a meal, a chat and everyone puts in an amount for your chosen candidate. Obama showed that you $1000 a plate dinners, or millionaire casino magnates stumping up the multi-millions. The Obama campaign brought in lots of small donations rather than a few very large ones.

Maybe we no longer have a female prime minister, that doesn’t mean misogyny and sexism will go away. The same week that PM Gillard became ex PM Gillard, the world watched Wendy Davis, in pink tennis shoes and white suit stand up for over 13 hours in the fight for women’s right, supported by male and female colleagues.

Julia Gillard was accused of misandry for daring to mention abortion. Meanwhile NSW has Zoe’s Law a bill that would grant greater legal protection to a foetus (“a ‘child’ in utero”), and John Madigan in the federal senate is an anti-abortionist Democratic Labor Party (DLP). It might be time for all of us to put on our pink tennis shoes and stand up for what we believe in, fight and campaign on individual issues, remind the people we vote for why we vote for them.

If PM Gillard showed us anything it’s that the gender card is not like a credit card, women don’t get to pull it out when they want something, it’s more like a red card or yellow card in football, it’s used against you, if you step out of boundaries. It’s Time to lace up our pink tennis shoes and start stepping over the boundaries.

As Tony Windsor is fond of saying The world is run by those who turn up, he has a point. It’s not an Australian Idol system of choosing governments, yet. The winner isn’t decided by whichever candidate has the most votes from the home viewer.

Too bad it’s not Survivor, there are a few Liberals I wish I could vote off the island.

No, I am not telling anyone what to do, this is all just my opinion, which I am entitled to as anyone else. If you disagree, that is your right.
People who are politically active may find nothing of interest in this post, it is written in response to people who say ‘now that Julia Gillard is gone, how can I vote for Rudd and his team of backstabbers’. Easy, find another way to channel that energy.

3Hansard: 27/06/13 Tony Abbott “Why should the Australian people accept that their right to choose their Prime Minister has been usurped by faceless men for the second time in just three years?”

3Hansard: 26/06/13 Tony Abbott “It is time the people of Australia were allowed to choose their Prime Minister.”

3Hansard: 21/03/13 Tony Abbott “I think it is time to give the people a chance to choose the Prime Minister and to choose the government. On the 50th anniversary of the faceless men being shown in a photograph in the Daily Telegraph, I say: let’s get rid of the faceless men. Let’s have a new Prime Minister and a new government.”

I wrote a piece recently that looked at the Cleavage of Consequence, of whatever that world wide phenomenon of taking photos of your cleavage is called, especially coming as it did days after the Prime Minister’s body was metaphorically carved up and put on a Liberal party fundraiser dinner.

Oh boy. Apparently, I’m the one stoning other feminists… and this is what, a love note? Have a different opinion and you get accused of being fascist.

Balance, in the media, what does that mean? Both sides (and there are only two sides, Dualism: right/wrong, black/white, left/right, male/female, there are no shades of grey) as the same as each other.

We have really put the duh in democracy, creating a perverse equality that entitles everyone to speak to every issue, regardless of how much they know about it.
Laura Penny, More Money Than Brains, p. 13.

In Fairfax’s never ending quest for balance we have these two posts, extracts included here, follow the link (before the paywall goes up) to read the full pieces, if you are brave enough.

The Age
theage.com.au 22 june 2013
nameless editorial

For the sake of the nation, Ms Gillard should stand aside
It is time for Julia Gillard to stand aside as leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party, as Prime Minister of Australia, so that vigorous, policy-driven democratic debate can flourish once again. Ms Gillard should do so in the interests of the Labor Party, in the interests of the nation and, most importantly, in the interests of democracy. The Age’s overriding concern is that, under Ms Gillard’s leadership, the Labor Party’s message about its future policies and vision for Australia is not getting through to the electorate. Our fear is that if there is no change in Labor leadership before the September 14 election, voters will be denied a proper contest of ideas and policies – and that would be a travesty for the democratic process.
The Age does not advocate this lightly. We do so with all respect to Ms Gillard
to read more … For the sake of the nation, Ms Gillard should stand aside

Sydney Morning Heraldhttp://www.smh.com.au/ 20 June 2013
by Nicolle Flint who has previously worked as an adviser to Liberal leaders and is a member of the Liberal Part

Tony Abbott is the thinking woman’s prime minister

if Australians want a prime minister with conviction, vision, a dedication to community and compassion, and who leads by example, then we should elect an Abbott government. Tony Abbott is the thinking person’s prime minister, and to my mind, regardless of what certain women might try to argue, Tony Abbott is the thinking woman’s prime minister.
to read more … Abbott, the thinking person’s prime minister

Editted to add
Alerted in a blog comment to this piece, another Fairfax contribution

Sydney Morning Herald 22 June 2013

With regret, Gillard must go, for nation’s sake
Prime Minister, it’s time. Time for you to quit. As this Parliament draws to its close, it’s time for you to recognise that, for all your achievements, you are leading your government and your party to an electoral defeat of unprecedented disaster.

As painful as it must be, it’s time for you to stand aside for the good of your colleagues, for Labor people everywhere, and for the nation itself. The plain fact is that Australians are no longer listening to you.
to read more … With regret, Gillard must go, for nation’s sake

If the Right in this country does something stupid, is it a sign of maturity for the Left to descend into even deeper stupidity? Both sides are as a bad each other when it comes to Stunts. The Left like to laugh at “Stuntboy” Abbott and his playing dress ups, but is the Left really any better?

My disillusionment with the Left is all about the supporters, not the policies. I still believe in the policies and goals of the Left, the “fair go” and public community, yet I cannot in all good conscience continue to promote the “activists” and so-called “supporters” of the Left who are really about promoting themselves, than any ideals.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays, Section III: Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe, p. 76.

What we have witnessed in Australia over the past month or so has heightened “democracy” to the truly absurd. We have not become a nation of what is fair, justice, sane, logical – we have become a nation of “whichever idiot shouts the loudest wins”.

We have become a nation that is so wealthy and prosperous that while other nations are have mass demonstrations for health care and public parks, we have reduced participation in democracy to the colour of ties, selfies of our cleavage and paying for Murdoch’s Foxtel in order to “know your enemy” and complain about creeping Murdocracy.

The week before the “convoy of cleavage”, feminists, women, Left wing men, sane thinking Liberals pointed out the misogyny of That Menu, when a Queensland restaurateur put the Prime Minister’s body parts on the menu “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail – small breasts, huge thighs and a big red ***”.

A few days after the furor of That Menu died down, women were encouraged to send photos of their cleavage to a website in support of the Prime Minister following a comment from WorkChoices activist Grace Collier “I don’t think it’s appropriate for a Prime Minister to be showing her cleavage in Parliament”. It was the Convoy Of Cleavage.

What about my friend who had a double mastectomy, is a photo of her scars a feminist statement of solidarity? What about my friend who had breast cancer but kept her breasts, who regards her breasts as a ticking time bomb? What about my friend who is double-G, who has been sexually harassed, groped and commented on since she was 13, and endures constant back, neck and shoulder pain, a photo of her cleavage is not a symbol of freedom, to her it represents suffering.

I saw the celebrations on social media “our convoy of cleavage made Huffington post, yah” and “our convoy of cleavage made the Daily Mail in the UK, we are world-wide”. The Daily Mail is a tabloid, and most likely the political reasons behind all the cleavage kind of got lost, especially, when there complaints that the Australian medias reaction to the Convoy Of Cleavage was to post a selection of photos on Page 3.

Hey ladies, you want to be a feminist activist? Send a picture of your cleavage to a website, congratulations, you are now an activist and a feminist. Just hope and wish really, really hard that some loser out there isn’t keeping a copy of the photo.

Hey sister, sorry, I can’t sign your petition, attend your fundraiser, paint your placard, or join your street march, I’m too busy taking a photo of my cleavage, but it’s okay, it’s all a feminist statement of support for the Prime Minister. I’m sure the people looking at these pictures, especially on Daily Mail, and Huffington Post websites will understand completely the context in which it is intended.

Should I write a thoroughly researched blog post on sexism and misogyny of Tony Abbott and the Liberal party and why a vote for Tony Abbott’s Liberals is a step back for women in this country? Or should I take a photo of my cleavage?

Should I join a group such as Emily’s List, and raise funds, make phone calls, organise events with famous feminists? Or should I take a photo of my cleavage?

Should I organise a fundraising event for a female candidate who supports pro-choice and women’s rights? Or should I take a photo of my cleavage?

Should I organise an evening in celebration of women’s right to vote, and right to stand for Parliament, complete with speeches and songs and sparkling wine and nibbles and goodie bags? Or should I take a photo of my cleavage?

Should I advocate for harsher parole conditions for men who rape and murder women than the current system that allows rapists and murderers parole enabling them to do it all over again to someone else? Or should I take a photo of my cleavage?

But if I do take a photo of my cleavage, you have to view it from a standpoint of solidarity with the Prime Minister against the slings and arrows of the Right wing who spend countless hours criticising the Prime Minister’s appearance as a substitute for giving Australia their Right wing policies.

If I do take a photo of my cleavage, you cannot view it as sexual or in any way objectify women by reducing them to a body part, you have to view it a feminist statement.

Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Should I take a photo of my booty too? After all, Germaine Greer did say “You’ve got a big arse, Julia, just get on with it”. The booty of consequence?

It seems like only a few months ago, women across Australia were protesting against Channel 7’s Kochie and his statements about nursing mothers should be more “discreet” (January 2013), and breast-feeding mothers were gathered outside the studies for Kochie’s breakfast show in protest.

It would appear my greatest contribution to political discourse and protest in this country involves my breasts.

The Prime Minister was also wearing a black outfit in the photo used to illustrate Colliers’ comment about “cleavage in Parliament”, would wearing black, something men and women could do, have been an acceptable sign of solidarity?

Really? Everybody dressing the same is intellectual freedom? Just as well they all intellectually used their freedom of thought to all decided to do exactly the same thing as each. It is stupid, childish and trivial when there are so many other more important things going on the country.

Work makes free
War is peace
Ignorance is strength
Everyone doing exactly what Tony does is intellectual freedom.

If Tony says jump, do Liberal MPs raise their arms and say “hey, I’ll do that, high? this high?”

Every media commentator and churnalist, who then pointed out whenever a Labor party member was wearing a blue tie, brought this issue into the “even more stupid than before” category. They obsessed with tie colours because it is easier to talk about who is wearing what than the policies of the Liberal party (easier because the Liberal party have 3-word slogans, not policies, and it takes a lot of media spin to make it sound plausible).

If Liberal party men wearing blue ties and Liberal party women wearing blue scarfs in reaction to a fleeting mention of “blue ties” in a speech from the Prime Minister is childish, then how is this a serious political statement?

Imagine a 45-year-old Right wing internet troll, living in his mothers’ spare bedroom and spending all his after work hours trawling the web collecting images of women’s cleaving and compiling them into one website named “Breasts Of The Left” – is that not a show of solidarity with the Prime Minister?

This is what Australian politics has become. As the street graffiti once said “Stop The World – I Want To Get Off”.

On the other hand, maybe I can’t string two sentences together. Maybe I am incapable of organising anything, or baking lamingtons for a fundraiser or tweeting links to the right Facebook groups, maybe just maybe my greatest contribution really is a picture of my cleavage.

So, here it is, a picture of my cleavage. For every $25 donation to Emily’s List, I will unveil another piece. If I’m going to show my cleavage to empower the women on the Left, I can’t think of anything more empowering than a financial donation.

The reason I won’t be voting for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard at the election in September, is the very same reason that I won’t be voting for Tony Abbott… I don’t live in their electorate.

Under the Westminster system, which we have in Australia, we can only vote for our local candidate.

People who live in Lalor (PM Gillard’s seat) and Warringah (LOTO Abbott’s seat) can vote for J Gillard and T Abbott in their role as their local member, but they can’t vote for either in their to be Prime Minister.

Also, when people say “if we elect Tony Abbott at this election…” they must know that Tony is already elected, that’s why he sits in Parliament, when he is awake.

In 2013, what is it like to be an Australian woman? Pretty crap actually, Australian women only marginally more respected than Aboriginal People and those of the Muslim faith and refugees. Just think about this group of people, they are a big chunk of the population but you wouldn’t know it. This group is the play thing of hate politics and boy are we used, rung out and then used again.

This week has been one of the most depressing times for me as an Australian woman, you may wish to mock me at saying this, roll your eyes and say, typical, another woman whinging about how hard it is to be a woman but I felt wrung out by the end.

It just may be because this country’s parliaments and media is chock to the gills with middle aged white men who are threatened by anything that doesn’t reflect back themselves, a sorry lot of unevolved miscreants who only want power, prestige and money, the sole motivation, everything is for sale, including our international standing. I include their female enablers in this group, they may as well be one of these men even the ones who call themselves feminists.

This week we had our first female Prime Minister of this country humiliated like no man can ever be or ever was and you would have thought calling her some man’s bitch was bad, but that’s so 2010, we have moved up the hate a few notches since then.

First we had the visceral dismissal of the a speech the PM gave to an ALP women’s political group Labour for Women, where she spoke of abortion and the need to ensure it doesn’t become the political play thing of men who think they know better. She also spoke about women sharing power in the Labor Party but conspicuously absent from the centre of power in the LNP Coalition with the most powerful jobs in a Government of PM, Deputy PM, Treasurer and Finance Minister all filled by men. She used a blue tie analogy to represent the power brokers in the opposition party led by Tony Abbot. She used the blue tie because Tony Abbott had announced he would be wearing a white shirt and blue tie every day until the election and she was poking fun, how very dare she?

The media were disdainful and so were many on social media. What a failure, what a fraud, she’s playing the gender card and how puerile, can this woman get nothing right? She was accused of using wedge politics and bringing tea party style politics to Australia, because Abbott hasn’t with his daily repetitive big lie mantras, of ‘stop the boats’ ‘she can’t be trusted’, ‘incompetent Prime Minister’ ‘wasteful incompetent Government’; despite Australia weathering the GFC better than most countries, lowest interest rates it has had in decades, a AAA rating from all three agencies (for the first time ever), and an economy with steady growth and improved productivity.

Joe Hockey the man from the opposition party who expects to be our next Treasurer tweeted “Gillard’s comments on abortion and the Coalition are desperate and offensive. She has never deserved respect and will never receive it.” Noice.

We then had menugate (sic) where an owner of a Sunshine Coast restaurant was hosting an LNP fundraiser for Mal Brough the Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Fisher, put together a menu that had the PMs breasts, thighs and vagina (yep) as part of the dishes on offer. Joe Hockey was in attendance but they didn’t see the menu and knew nothing about it, although Mal thought it had been done for the event, but he realised later, no he didn’t know anything about it, he was just confused by all the meeja questioning him about it. It was all a joke, you see, for the venue owner and his son to laugh themselves silly over. The joke creator was also very sorry he had embarrassed Mr Brough and oh of course he really loves women. He wasn’t however sorry that he had humiliated the PM or if he was he never told us.

The picture that got leaked through social media looked like it was professionally printed and even embossed with stars next to the PM dish de jour but no, it was just a joke for two people whipped up on the office desk jet. If you believe this ridiculous mea culpa, I have a bridge in Sydney to sell you.

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey told us, it was revolving and wrong but it never left the kitchen and to suggest otherwise, was an outrage and nonsense when there are so many other issues we should be focusing on like, Her incompetence, drowning refugees, and the need to rid ourselves of this terrible Government. Furthermore, this was a desperate ploy by a desperate Government to hide their incompetency; See kids, this is how it works, not just deny, deny, but spin the blame back on the victim.

Good old Tones and Joe also didn’t see the need to offer the PM an apology that someone they were associated with would humiliate her in such a way, ’cause you know, she doesn’t deserve respect and she will never receive it.

So while some of us, like myself were not only appalled but a little sad that a female, let alone the Prime Minister can be so humiliated and not only not receive an apology but be beaten down for daring to be offended, we got served up the next LNP related shocker.

The Western Australian shock jock, Howard Settler, who has been master of ceremonies at WA LNP functions, decided that during his interview with the PM he would heap a little more derp and disrespect on her plate, just in case she got any idea that respect would ever come her way from anyone who is on the side of Tony Abbott. Sattler during an on air Q&A with the PM, asked her if her partner of seven years was gay? You see her partner is a hairdresser by trade and ergo, gay. She tried to brush it off, Oh Howard don’t be silly, no, he insisted, this isn’t me asking this it’s what people say, is Tim gay?

How she didn’t walk out is beyond me but if she did, she would be have pilloried for it I am sure. At least this level of hateful endeavour was seen as too far, sweet baby cheeses, we finally got to the point where we as a nation agreed this was too much. Personally I think we hit it in 2011, when Tony Abbott stood next to Ditch The Witch signs at an anti carbon tax rally, surrounded by many of his team and a few hundred older hateful Australian’s that were mad as hell a woman had lied to them.

Sattler has been sacked or suspended, I’m not quite sure and I really don’t care, I hear he is suing for unfair dismissal or suspension or something and has Parkinson’s, ’cause you know, that makes it alright to humiliate the Prime Minister. Remember, she doesn’t deserve respect and she will never receive it.

Oh and what’s even better, this totally embarrassing and disgraceful behaviour is being reported around the world, look at Australia, look at how it treats its Prime Minister, the world is looking at us and saying, what in the hell is their problem? I’m not quite sure I could tell them.

By the end of the week anyone on her side was pretty rung out and most of the women I spoke to or conversed with on Twitter with were appalled and reeling, really, she deserves this, an LNP-voting tweeter said to me, the menu was wrong but she has brought disrespect to the office.

So despite everything she went through, this guy was unmoved by her plight, no sympathy what so ever, she deserves no respect and she’s not going to receive it.

Then The Australian, who has been one of the biggest villain’s in ensuring Australian women think twice about aspiring to political office, decided their weekend paper would kick her one more time this week. Their weekend paper edition’s front page headline screamed that the PM had lost the support of her union factional supporters the Australian Workers Party and she was gone. We soon found out from its Secretary that this was not true and then other ALP caucus members came out in her support. Although, this is mere detail, it’s still running stories on how the majority of her party don’t want her and she is still trying to get mileage out of the Opposition Leaders alleged misogyny.

This is where I just want to scream. I have read so much bile and seen her called ‘c**t’ so many times I never want to see that word again, you know she once did a live online Q&A to answer the public’s questions and she had to sit there and watch the screen serve up the most vile abuse at her by the trolls that want make sure she knows exactly how they feel. They mocked her over her Father’s death, called her c**t (natch) threatened her and gloated at her soon to be political demise.

THIS IS AUSTRALIA 2013.

Now someone explain to me how this is right and how any woman wouldn’t feel completely overwhelmed and even scared by this constant abuse and criticism and if our leaders are doing it why wouldn’t the guy in the next cubicle who thinks like them wouldn’t? It’s now a national sport to abuse the Prime Minister; I do not recall any PM before her receiving this kind of hatred and bile. During the week if you were on twitter a lot of reminders got tweeted into your timeline of the hatred thrown at her. I cried a couple of times, both out of fear and a deep sadness, me the women is forced to watch the abuse of another, in the name of politics. I’m told big deal it’s not me, well NO, I not the sort of person who can just watch and not care, even if it was Julie Bishop, who I despise, I could not bare it, but hey its not me and I am over-reacting and meh, she doesn’t deserve respect and she isn’t going to receive it.

I also have a message for both Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, there is no way in hell I will vote for men who have so comprehensively been at the centre of the persecution of this women. Abbott you are a misogynist, you may not hate the women you know and love but you sure as hell hate the rest of us. Your decades of berating us for thinking we have a right to control our own bodies and the way you have made us watch your abuse of our first female PM is proof enough for me and I don’t care what the dictionary, The Australian or your female traitors say, you are a despicable man.

Kevin, you were dumped by your party and Ms Gillard put in your place because you were a prig who disapproved of anything you thought played well with the election and outside of the Apology to our Aboriginal People who we have been abused for 200 years and continue to be so and the stimulus, you couldn’t run Government. You wouldn’t consult, you bullied and you ignored those who you thought had slighted you. You were in it for the ego, much like Abbott and you are not a better alternative, I do not believe you could have weathered such an onslaught or gotten NBN, NDIS or GONSKI through parliament all nation building, impressive initiatives, you couldn’t get your ETS or Health Policy through. Yeah I know you leaked at last election to make sure she faced a hung parliament or no Government at all because better the Man than THAT woman. In my opinion, you should leave the party and hang your head in shame.
No gentlemen you were not born to rule, you were born to remind us that some men in Australia are not worth pissing on if they were on fire.

Murdocracy and Murdoctatorship, strippers and porn stars as role models, religion in our under-funded public schools, and the Ashby conspiracy to bring down the Government. These are all symptoms of a dumbed down country that glorifies ignorance over education.

It is easier to tell a dumbed down population what to think, than it is to convince a thinking person what they know to be true is wrong.

Dumbed down people believe what they are told, because they have lost all abilities to reason, use logic, think and research for themselves.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela

If Mandela is correct, a dumbed down population is unarmed. Why is there this Right Wing fear of the educated, the thinkers, of truth and logic?

What does a dumbed down country look like? Australia, you are standing in it.

We demonise as “elite” anyone with an education, and celebrate to the point of deification stupidity, and then beg multi-degreed politicians to defund our public schools.

Spelling is not so important, people say, as long as the kids can communicate.

Reading is not so important, people say, as long as the kids can communicate.

Thinking is not so important, people say, as long as the kids are consuming.

The most revered in our culture are not playwrights and scientists and teachers and nurses, but bookies, gangsters, the professional crash-test dummies of football, and Las Vegas dancers who marry former bankrupt businessmen.

Try this test at home:
Name a living Australian playwright?
Name a living Australian bookie?

Media and Murdocracy

If the printing press was one of the greatest technological advances in human history, then universal literacy is one of the great social leaps forward.

Dumbing down people, keeping them underexposed to facts and truth, paywalls that are tolls-ways to information, copyright laws that criminalise distribution of information, and the persecution of whistleblowers is a great leap backwards into the Dark Ages of Ignorance and Superstition.

We have an Opposition leader who has elevated thuggery and violence above diplomacy and compassion… and will govern the same way if given a chance, a man who acts like he believes: if you punch enough walls you will eventually get your own way.

We have a media that repeats the Opposition Leader’s three-word slogans as if they are reporting news, when they are merely reprinting press releases.

Our newspapers no longer give us news. As if they ever did. Newspapers are an advertising delivery system. Newspapers are a business, whose owners are prepared to take a financial loss in order to shape public opinion.

“News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising. The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don’t print matter a lot.” – Katharine Graham, of The Washington Post (a quote attributed to, authenticity debated)

In 1972 journalists uncovered the Watergate break-in, a scandal that brought down US American president Richard Nixon. In 2012, Australian journalists covered up (or ignored to the point it may as well have been a cover up) the Ashby conspiracy, found by Justice Rares as an attempt to bring down the government by changing the make up of the House of Representatives.

James Ashby, in conspiracy with Mal Brough, wannabe MP for Fisher, failed coup against the democratically elected government of Australia. The media falls silent. We get a more thorough investigation in the Prime Minister’s glasses than an attempt to overthrow our government.

Alfred C. Harmsworth, in a quote attributed to him, said: It is part of the business of a newspaper to get news and to print it; it is part of the business of a politician to prevent certain news being printed. For this reason the politician often takes a newspaper into his confidence for the mere purpose of preventing the publication of the news he deems objectionable to his interests.” All the rest is advertising and public relations.

Murdoctatorship

We have now moved beyond Murdocracy (rule by Murdoch) and have entered Murdoctatorship.

Opinion pieces replace facts and research and investigative journalism, they are faster to produce in an 24/7 news cycle. They are cheaper and media organisations don’t need people on the ground, they can be sitting at their laptops, in their pyjamas watching daytime television and eating leftover Chinese takeaway, and pump out a cut-and-paste anti-government diatribe. The editors are happy, they can fill their column inches.

We have a media happy to repeat Tony Abbott and his Coalitions and his three-word slogans and talking points as if its news. “Stop The Boats” is an immigration policies, “axe the tax” is an environmental policy, “Gonski is goneski” is an education policy, “ditch the witch” is their women’s policy.

Some days we don’t even get the benefit of opinion pieces, some days we get press releases printed in their entirety, unspun and un-fact-checked.

We have a media culture in this country which brags about their new / soon fact checking units. Channel 7 partnered with Politifact, ABC is going in-house. How bad is our news media that they are bragging they have fact checking units. Are news consumers so switched off about what is served to them in the name of news that media makes a virtue of fact checking? Most people would hope that facts being checked is the minimum requirement, not an optional extra.

The media have performed a Murdoch lobotomy on many in this nation. They have been lulled into stupefaction, gorging on a feast of boat-people hate, anti-PM Gillard sexism, hyper-consumption, and sports and gambling.

We in this nation have outsourced our thinking to a cabal of Rupert Murdoch, Gina ‘$2 a day’ Rinehart, Cardinal Pell, the Australian Tea Party trying hard to copy the US Tea Party, and Tony Abbott. It is all okay though, if we let mining magnates, paedophile apologists and media billionaires tell us what to think, they have our best interests at heart, Tony Abbott is the best friend workers ever had, I know this because I read it in the Daily Telegraph and heard it on the Alan Jones radio show.

The talking heads are on their way to becoming completely disconnected to everyday Australians, journalists talk to other journalists about what another journalist said. It’s a great big circle jerk, and the viewers and readers are turning away.

We were lied into an Iraq war this way. The Bush White House leaked stories to a compliant Murdoch media, who then printed pro-war stories, this was then taken up as evidence by White House officials to prosecute the case for war.

‘Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq’, the Guardian, and so did 175 of his newspaper editors. Oh the irony, of the US military hanging Saddam Hussein as a dictator, on the word of Rupert Murdoch’s vast octopus of a media empire.

We don’t get an examination of policy from the media in this country, as the Canberra Press Gallery, says we wouldn’t understand “the context”. We get Tony Abbott’s three-word slogans instead, not even complete sentences, followed by an intense dissection of the Prime Minister’s hair, boyfriends, glasses, shoes, jackets, ears

Strippers as role models

Tony Abbott standing in front of a ‘Ditch the witch’ sign on two separate occasions, the Prime Minister’s body parts on a Liberal Party fundraiser dinner menu, Liberal party members and senior members have talked about slitting the PMs throat (Ciobo), kicking her death (Morris), putting the PM in a chaff bag and dumping her in the ocean (Jones), using baseball bats on the PM (Abbott), the PM is a stinking corpse (Bolt).

This is how Right wing men treat women in this country. Even the Prime Minister. Puts lie to a question mark over Tony Abbott’s claim that he respects women.

We are living in an age where women are treated with little respect from the media or our elected representatives.

Our media may be obsessed with celebrities, but in days gone by celebrities had something going for them other than how they look in a bikini or boardshorts. The 1940s Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (pictured) patented the frequency-hopping spread-spectrum invention (used in bluetooth, wi-fi and mobile phone technology), Geena Davis (‘Thelma and Louise’) is a member of Mensa (top 2% based on IQ), Angelina Jolie is some kind of Humanitarian.

Nowadays, our celebrities are no longer even the models (who can at least read cue cards) who star in movies, they are fame-hungry women with carefully choreographed sex tapes.

Little girls no longer dream of being flight attendants and firefighters and teachers when they grow up, they want to be WAGs (wives and girls of athletes) and pole dancers. Girls have porn stars as their role models – creating an inauthentic image where they are the commodified object based on imitating someone simulating sexual pleasure.
(I am not against porn stars, I just think girls growing up should have more than just porn stars, strippers, and sex tape celebrities as their role models)

For those girls who don’t grow up admiring Playboy models and strippers, they can have Rihanna as a role model. A singer who is more famous these days for going back to the boyfriend who almost killed her than any song she ever recorded. Violence against women is normalised, in our celebrities, and in our media directed at our Prime Minister, and subjecting yourself to more violence from your abuser is lauded by our media, as in the case of Rihanna.

Stand by your man, because he is the man, you are just the female.

A national newspaper named a horse as its female athlete of the year, and Rebel Sport hired the wife of a cricket player as their brand ambassador, “it’s about time we had a female ambassador associated with sport“, apparently every actual female athlete in the country was busy, and Black Caviar would just look stupid in Rebel’s shoes.

In our current dumbed down values system, the message for girls is how you look and who you date determine your worth as a human being. She is just the accessory, He is what matters.

As the singer P!nk asked in ‘Stupid Girls’What happened to the dreams of a girl president?
She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent

Educating only the ‘Right Kind’ of kids

Dumb them down from a young age, and you have a Liberal Party voter for life. Someone who confuses a three word slogan for a policy, will swallow what the media tells them.

Tony Abbott has said:

The other point I want to make is that it’s all very well keeping kids at school past year 10 but they’ve got to be the right kids being kept at school past year 10… And I guess I’d want to carefully study this and make sure that the right kids are getting the money and that we really were keeping the right kids at school because if you’ve got the wrong kids at school it can end up like a glorified occupational therapy basically.
Source: Keep kids in school, just the right ones – Abbott

Where are these “wrong” kids going to go, Tony? TAFEs in Liberal National states across the nation are being shut down, privatised and priced beyond the range of most 16-year-olds

To Tony Abbott education is a matter of funding (rather than knowledge), of the right kids, oh, and the right gender…

Tony Abbott’s great big solution to university funding is to stop educating women (maybe just educate the “women of calibre”), a policy that the Taliban would be proud of, in his younger years offered a policy of cutting university funding, especially of the arts, and reduce the numbers of students:While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework Source: here.

Public schools are being under funded, training providers privatised, private schools being over funded, and for-profit non-government schools have their hands out for increased government funding.

“Students who acquire large amounts of debt putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fees increases are a disciplinary technique and by the time students graduate they are not only loaded with debt but have also internalised the disciplinary culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy”.
attributed to Noam Chomsky

Parents working three jobs to send their kids to private schools, won’t have time to worry about the kids who go to public schools. Debt controls university students, it also controls parents. Of course, if you are of high income, and aren’t working three jobs just to pay school fees, it is probably a good arrangement.

Religion takes centre stage in our parliament, whereas twenty years ago, it was not something our politicians would brag about. Faith puts how you feel about something above provable facts, it narrows down your beliefs and education to a book that is over two-thousand years old. A book that advocates slaughtering witches and non-virgin women and thinks slavery is a good think. The faithful are taught to not ask questions. This is the way that Tony Abbott and his right-hand man Cardinal Pell would like voters to approach politics.

Tony Abbott thinks the bible should be compulsory in public schools

I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation… That includes, most importantly, the Bible. I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity. That doesn’t mean that people have to be believers.
Source: All kids must read the Bible, federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says

(I am not against religion, just the Cardinal Pell style of religion, which is a long way from Jesus)

Our public schools have to fight to get ethics instead of religion for the students who don’t want religious classes, meanwhile the taxpayers are paying for chaplains in public schools, whose qualifications require they be chaplains, yet, they are no supposed to do any chaplaining.

Makes sense, to someone, maybe. Not me, I went to school under a Liberal government.

While you shame, gag, silence, ignore, criticise the appearance of, demonise, mock, challenge the right or appropriateness to speak, cat call, slander, make invisible, blank, remove, and erase women I will speak out.

“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” – Martin Luther King (4 April 1967)

Standing by in silence while conservatives make invisible the women in Australia, that is a betrayal of half this nation.